Gothic 1 was in 2001, and Gothic 2 was in 2003 in Europe(English versions). Both those years were good for me, because games like Arcanum(2001) and KotOR(2003) also got released those years. I'd say '01, '03 and '06 were the best RPG years for me personally, ever since the "golden era"(1998 for example had games like BG2, MM6, Fallout 2 etc).